Aurelian was being pulled through the air by Priscilla, and the scene below was filled with danger and unease.
She had finally recovered from the sudden disappearance of Teacher Viktor.
Beneath her feet, there was an endless expanse of churning sand, along with a frenzied army of the undead and the Astral Knights.
They dragged their skeletal bodies burning with ghostly green flames, like a sea rolling with starlight.
Surging across the boundless land, everything looked incredibly eerie.
Above the heads of those undead, a pair of vast and terrifying blood-colored wings soared, their crimson veins clearly visible.
Priscilla held tightly onto Aurelian, quickly pulling them away from that mad land.
Feeling the unreal sensation of her feet hanging in the air, Aurelian said "thank you" to Priscilla behind her.
Now she finally understood why Teacher Viktor had insisted on bringing Priscilla along.
This perfect vampire, shaped by Count Laurien and the entire city of Shulben.
Although she looked young, her strength had already surpassed many people.
It was just that Priscilla lacked combat experience.
Looking down at the frenzied army and the Astral Knights far below, Aurelian felt a heaviness in her heart.
If Priscilla hadn't been there, she might have already sunk into that scorching sea of undead fire.
And the enemies below seemed to have stopped their internal conflict. Their target was very clear...
Aurelian, floating in the sky.
Those Astral Knights were not living beings in essence.
And those undead warriors, maintained in skeletal form without consciousness, would not attack non-living entities without command.
Now, they were more like a group of frenzied monsters, endlessly searching for and attacking targets.
The undead archers drew their bows, and arrows shot through the air one after another, trying to hit Aurelian and Priscilla in the sky.
Priscilla looked at the incoming rain of flaming arrows, and her wings behind her suddenly flapped.
The air trembled, and a gust of wind rose, snapping all the arrows apart.
The Astral Knights threw their long spears, but they were also blocked by Priscilla's pair of blood-flesh wings that looked as thin as cicada wings.
Every undead and every Astral Knight showed extreme hostility toward the two of them.
It was as if they had become the common enemy of this entire group of monsters.
But thanks to Priscilla's ability to fly in the sky, the enemies on the ground couldn't reach them.
After all, that fifth-tier demon dragon had not been revived.
Maybe it was because those necromancers didn't have enough power to control a demon dragon.
Aurelian bit her lip and said in a low voice, "What should we do…"
She and Priscilla could choose to leave, but what about the death row prisoners sealed at the bottom of the prison?
Those prisoners had been sealed there precisely because their crimes were unforgivable.
Like the group of mercenaries from before, their sins were so severe that they had to remain sealed here, enduring the pain of separation between life and death.
If they escaped, they would likely cause an immeasurable disaster to the outside world.
And those Astral Knights were another unpredictable variable.
Trying to stop them with just Aurelian and Priscilla was nearly impossible.
So, could they only rely on the method Teacher Viktor had mentioned?
"Use the methods of a necromancer to control them?"
She stared at the undead below, already driven to madness, and couldn't help but feel a trace of fear rising inside her.
These undead were not the same as those in Shulben before, the knights and nobles who had been turned into an undead state.
They had transformed from humans into a different state. That was the first necromancy her grandfather had taught her.
In truth, they were still human. Aurelian knew that very well.
But the undead in front of her were nothing more than empty shells left in the world.
Because their souls had been stripped away, only their bodies remained buried in the soil, no different from actual corpses.
As for those few necromancers, perhaps because they were mages, their mental strength was exceptionally strong.
Deep within their bodies, there still remained a trace of instinctive consciousness.
The only option now was for her to make use of those lingering souls.
To make the undead and the Astral Knights turn on each other and slaughter one another.
Otherwise, with no one to deal with the Astral Knights, the battle would only grow more difficult.
But trying to control the dead...
That was completely different from transforming the living.
Whenever she thought about manipulating the dead, a deep sense of resistance would rise within Aurelian.
And she wasn't even sure she could control all those things.
As if thinking of something, Aurelian's gaze shifted to the other side of the sandy land.
There lay the fragments of the demon dragon's skeleton that Viktor had left behind earlier.
At that moment, an idea formed in Aurelian's mind.
She quickly raised her head to look at Priscilla and asked, "Priscilla, if you were just to harass them, how long could you hold out?"
"Me?"
Priscilla was momentarily stunned, her gaze drifting between the undead warriors and the Astral Knights.
Because they had risen to a certain height, the enemies' attacks could no longer reach them.
Having lost their target, the enemies began wandering across the land.
And Priscilla also noticed that although the Land of Lingyi Starlight looked vast and endless, there was only a single winding path leading out.
Aside from that, the entire land was made of loose sand.
So the direction those undead soldiers were moving would inevitably lead them out of the prison.
They had to be stopped.
Aurelian's voice slowly sounded in her ear. Priscilla lowered her head to look, "I have a plan…"
———
In the sky, a pair of blood-colored flesh wings spread open.
Priscilla's figure soared through the low air, constantly drawing the attention of the undead warriors.
Sensing a new enemy approaching, those gaunt warriors with flickering soul flames in their eye sockets all launched attacks at Priscilla as she streaked across the land.
Arrows and spears followed one after another, carrying soul fire and stardust as they swept past her.
Priscilla agilely shifted her posture in midair, perfectly dodging the attacks.
The split-second danger of life and death brushing past her ears gave Priscilla a rare sense of delight.
It was something she could never feel in ordinary times.
Because of that, she even grew bolder, trying to show off her skills.
Priscilla circled and soared through the air, trying to become a blood-colored dancer moving across the sky.
In an instant, a long spear swirling with nebula-like light shot toward her after a wave of ghostly green arrows.
Priscilla failed to react in time, and the spear pierced straight into her arm before turning into starlight and slowly dissipating.
In the end, a small hole was left on her pale arm.
Priscilla felt a faint pain.
In the next second, her arm rapidly recovered, completely healed, leaving not even a scar on her fair skin.
Priscilla was slightly surprised and even blinked.
Huh? So she was this amazing?
At this moment, both the undead army and the Astral Knights had all been drawn toward Priscilla.
Meanwhile, Aurelian lightly stepped across the yellow earth, carefully approaching the demon dragon's remains.
At this close distance, she could clearly see the enormous skeletal dragon head.
Although it was also a corpse, something extraordinary like a demon dragon did not provoke much resistance in Aurelian's heart.
"This has to work…"
Aurelian murmured a quiet prayer and began casting necromancy.
Ghostly green magic surged from her body, then turned into ghostfire that quickly wrapped around her.
In the next second, her entire body also transformed into an undead state, with frenzied ghostfire burning within her.
The ghostfire moved like twisting threads, passing through the fragments of the dragon's bones, binding them together.
Those fragments began to tremble, breaking out of the sand and floating in the air through necromantic power.
Watching as the necromantic energy gathered those bones and assembled them midair into the dragon's original complete form, Aurelian was overjoyed, and a smile appeared on her previously tense face.
'Could it be… it was going to succeed?'
But in the next moment, the bone fragments began to shake unsteadily under the support of Aurelian's necromantic power.
The ghostfire, like silk threading through the fragments, also began to grow unstable.
Crack!
In the next second, the fluctuation of necromantic power exceeded Aurelian's control and suddenly shattered, disappearing.
And the bone fragments all fell back into the sand once more.
Looking at the scattered white bones on the ground, the smile on her face turned back into disappointment.
That made sense. That was a fifth-tier demon dragon.
How could she possibly turn a fifth-tier demon dragon into her soldier? Not to mention whether the dragon would even obey her.
Did it really mean she had to control those death row prisoners?
Aurelian turned her head back, watching Priscilla flying low, tangled in combat with the undead and the Astral Knights.
It had to be said, even though Priscilla's movements were chaotic and unstructured, they were indeed effective.
But in the next moment, because she got too close, her shoulder was struck by an Astral spear, which then slowly dissipated.
It seemed there was no way back anymore.
If this continued, Priscilla would likely face even greater danger.
Under these circumstances, Aurelian once again felt a trace of discouragement.
At some point, an inconspicuous one-eyed crow landed on top of the demon dragon's remains.
Veigar concealed its presence, leaving only its gleaming single eye to observe Aurelian.
Along with a quiet and ethereal voice, it sounded in Aurelian's mind, 'Do you need my help?'